Progressives believe that government run by experts should have a larger role in the economy and in running our lives than has historically been the case in free market economies. They believe government planners are altruistically motivated and can run an economy more successfully than a lightly regulated free market.
Progressives appear to put more faith in the citizens’ ability to appropriately elect the politicians who are to choose the planners and experts who are to guide the management of their lives than in the citizens’ ability to manage their lives themselves. Actually they put their faith in their ability to manipulate public opinion through their dominance of our educational institutions and the media to achieve the desired election outcomes, as is implied in the Bernay’s quote below.
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” – Edward Bernays in Propaganda (1928):
The tools of propaganda and opinion influence today are far more sophisticated and powerful than in Bernay’s day. The most extreme example is in China, whose incredibly comprehensive tools of propaganda are backed up by their social credit system.
Progressives prefer bigger and more pervasive government and more government enforced equality, and ignore the consequent loss of liberty. Government becomes more pervasive as individual responsibilities and freedoms are reduced and the roles of religion and voluntary associations weakened. Our federal government has gained an enormous amount of control and micromanagement over our states and our educational institutions and voluntary philanthropic associations by subsidizing them with rules and conditions attached.